Before facing the Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Sunday afternoon, Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich was asked, in a long-winded way, his opinion of the critical Twitter posts that the Knicks president Phil Jackson had made about Carmelo Anthony, the team’s star player.

“You can end this question any time you want to,” Popovich interjected. “You can carry on as much as you want. Not my problem.”

Popovich had a similar response when asked about the ejection of the popular former Knick Charles Oakley from the Garden during a game on Wednesday.

Since Popovich and the Spurs celebrated their first N.B.A. championship on the Garden floor in 1999, the franchise has had little drama off the court and has gone on to win four more titles. Conversely, the Knicks, who have not reached the finals since that four-games-to-one loss to the Spurs, often provide a spectacle of dysfunction.

“I don’t have a drama meter to prove one way or the other, but less drama makes my job easier — and that’s good enough for me,” Popovich said.

The Knicks were once known for victories in big games against vaunted opponents, not for internal squabbles. With the tumult of the last week still lingering in the air, the Knicks reclaimed some of their past prowess and played one of their best defensive games of the year on Sunday, defeating the imposing Spurs, 94-90.

“We had a big negative cloud above us for a while now, and we were letting it get to us,” said Knicks guard Courtney Lee, who had 9 points. “Some guys can say they don’t pay attention to all that stuff, but at some point you get tired of it. So for us to come out and get a win against the Spurs is huge, maybe what we need to turn this thing around.”

The Knicks spent the greater part of an extended practice on Saturday watching film of their last game, a 131-123 home loss to the Denver Nuggets on Friday. Before beating the Spurs, the Knicks had allowed 111 or more points in each game of a four-game losing streak.

The return of forward Lance Thomas, who had missed nearly a month with a fractured facial bone, also helped.

“We really missed him,” forward Kristaps Porzingis said, adding that the absence of Thomas was one reason the Knicks (23-33) had been so bad on defense recently.

“He’s going to bring us back that defensive edge,” said Porzingis, who had 16 points, 7 rebounds and 4 blocks.

Still, the Knicks’ win, which ended their five-game homestand on a positive note, may have been more a result of the Spurs (41-13) having an off night than the emergence of a suddenly transformed Knicks unit playing gritty defense the way the 1999 team did. The Spurs collected 21 offensive rebounds, but shot only 36 percent from the field.

Anthony, who led the Knicks with 25 points and hit several clutch shots down the stretch, also said it was premature to think that the glory days of Knicks basketball have returned.

“I won’t say the cloud is gone in one day,” Anthony said. “It snowed the other day — there’s still snow outside — so I wouldn’t say the cloud is gone. But for us to come out here and get this win tonight, it’s definitely a relief from everything that’s gone on.”